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If there was any question how serious Oracle is about the cloud, the company is answering loud and clear -- and repeatedly. In its latest response, the software maker is expanding the number of Oracle Cloud data centers.

With the new Oracle Cloud data centers scheduled to go online by the second quarter of 2014, Oracle is working to help customers and partners leverage cloud computing and support the demand for local data residency and regulatory requirements.

"Oracle operates a mission-critical cloud, and we understand that cloud services need to deliver more than our already industry-leading breadth and depth of cloud service functionality," said Oracle President Mark Hurd. "Oracle also delivers on the requirements of enterprise IT, including important corporate and regulatory requirements around data privacy and security."

Meeting Enterprise Demand

Oracle offers customers and partners choice and flexibility in where they deploy the vendor's software: in Oracle Cloud and other public clouds, at traditional on-premise data centers, private clouds and private managed clouds, meeting the most comprehensive security and compliance standards in the industry.

Oracle's new data centers will expand Oracle's global cloud infrastructure to 17 data centers supporting a portfolio of application, social, platform, and infrastructure services, all available on a subscription basis.

We turned to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, to get his take on the announcement. He told us the news is in line with the enterprise vendor trend. IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and EMC are all opening new data centers.

"This reflects the market reality that when it comes to the enterprise customers that these vendors deal with, there are some applications and there is some data that will never been moved into the public cloud, or at least not for a long time," King said. "So the question becomes, 'If those customers are interested in engaging some type of cloud services, who are the best providers of those services?'"

Cementing Customer Relationships

The answer is, "Who better than the vendors enterprises vendors are already dealing with?" Oracle, for one, stations employees on client sites full-time to help drive maximum performance from database applications. Oracle, then, has trusted relationships with hundreds if not thousands of large companies. That, King said, makes them the perfect candidate.

"Its very wise for Oracle to get on the ball with this. It fits in their wheelhouse. They are obviously engaged with a lot of these customers themselves. Frankly, if they don't do something like this they risk being left behind," King said.

"It will never be a majority part of their business. I don't think it will be a majority part of anybody's business. But you can make a living at it and it's a way to further cement relationships with core customers."